Just for the record, Adrian, I believe the Embryology Bill did not alter the Abortion law at all, despite huge efforts on all sides and a range of 'liberalising' amendments, including the one you mention, which would have further abandoned vulnerable women to coercion and the aborttoirs.

Most of us within the Elders of Sodom are not easily offended or even discomfited by such symbols, but for all the tolerant strains of Christianity out there and all the profoundly ethical Christians that subscribe to them, the liberalising reformations of Christianity are far from universal.

With the government poised to announce measures in the budget this week to kick-start house-building by liberalising planning laws, East Coker's dilemma could be the first of many similar disputes, albeit without the literary edge.

The prime minister insisted that the government should keep alive the idea which was one of the central recommendations in a report on liberalising employment regulations by the venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft.